A NEW CHAPTER

Written by Lydia Benedict.

Photo: Clancy Benedict

After fifteen years of homeschooling my four children, I started a new chapter in my life. With my youngest in college, I went back to school. After a semester course in real estate followed by two exams, I became a licensed realtor and am now affiliated with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices out of Mystic, Connecticut.

In Loving Memory of Dad

Written by Lydia Benedict.

August 21, 1946 - August 24, 2021

 

World War II had ended just a year earlier. The average cost of a new house was $5,600 while the median family annual income was about $3,000. A dozen eggs cost just $ 0.64. And television was limited to two networks, and 12 hours of programming a week. The year was 1946 and my father, Dwight Paul Hansen, was born on August 21, in Rockford, Idaho. He was the third youngest of a large family and spent his childhood working and playing alongside his brothers on their 640-acre-farm west of Blackfoot.

I’m Not Wonder Woman

Written by Lydia Benedict.

Nine years ago this summer we purchased a neglected pre-Civil War home sitting on twenty acres in the Shenandoah Valley. Before I’d even visited the property, I’d fallen in love with it. From online photos I could see it offered much of what I’d always wanted: land, privacy, room for gardens and animals, and plenty of space for kids to play and dream. It even had a long, tree-lined driveway.

50 Years

Written by Lydia Benedict.

 

Fifty years ago today, my parents were married. It was 1966 and the world was changing. Women were attending college in record numbers. Civil Rights laws were being passed. Students around the world were protesting the Vietnam War. Yet in Farmington, New Mexico, Shirley Jackson and Dwight Hansen were in love. Tall and handsome, Dwight was head-over-heels for the feisty, pretty Jackson girl. But Dwight was very shy. Shirley had to take the lead.

My Boy

Written by Lydia Benedict.

 

My son Clancy turned 16 earlier this month. For his birthday, he really wanted an electric guitar. Clancy has been playing piano for 10 years, but more recently started learning acoustic guitar. He’s hooked. He disappears for hours and reappears only to show me some song he’s “figured out.”

Pyramids and Plates

Written by Lydia Benedict.

Historically, the word pyramid conjured up images of the great Egyptian tombs—at least until the United States government invented the food pyramid in 1992. The goal was to educate Americans about healthy eating choices by engraving in our minds and culture the image of the food pyramid with its recommended food group servings.

Back in Black

Written by Lydia Benedict.

 

Although I would love to skip winter, I use it to catch up on the projects I put on the back-burner each summer. This winter is no different. Once the fruit tree pruning was done (I pruned roughly 20 trees within the first couple weeks of January).

In the DARK

Written by Lydia Benedict.

While salmon is not likely on your mind this holiday season—it should be. Just weeks ago, the FDA approved genetically engineered (GE) salmon, the first altered animal, for human consumption. Up to this point, the only genetically modified organisms (GMOs) consumed by Americans were plants including corn, soy, and sugar. With the approval of the GM salmon introduced by the company AquaBounty comes the future likelihood of more altered animals in our food system.

Too Busy to Blog

Written by Lydia Benedict.

The cold weather is coming quickly and I’m rushing to beat it. In fact, we already hit freezing overnight temperatures a couple of nights in mid-October. Yet there is food to pick, dig or otherwise gather before I can close all the garden beds. And of course, there is still the store to close.

The Oregon Trail

Written by Lydia Benedict.

Last spring Jeff gave me an advanced copy of Rinker Buck’s book, The Oregon Trail: An American Journey. Buck opens his latest book with this line: “I had known long before I rode a covered wagon to Oregon that naiveté was the mother of adventure.” I was hooked. How many adventures in my life were the result of naiveté? Perhaps my whole adult life.